Reggae Soup: In Your Hand

(blog from August 30, 2007)

So, here I am in Japan. It’s been a wild couple of days so far, and I’ve had fun… so far.

A little background: I am going to be employed as an assistant language teacher in Kitakawabe, a small town on the edge of Saitoma prefecture. I’ve been recruited and employed by Heart School, which is a smaller-scale program along the lines of JET or NOVA. I’ll be here for seven months, teaching English to elementary and junior high students. It’ll be… interesting. I’m sure I’ll come back a different Kyle Hurford.

I left for the airport early Sunday morning, with my parents in a mad rush. There were a few snags, but I got on the plane fine… only without shampoo. (Don’t pack your shampoo in a carry-on bag, folks.) I flew from Atlanta to Houston, where I had a connecting flight to Narita Airport. The first flight was kind of lame and short, but I had a fairly luxurious flight from Texas to Japan. Plenty of room to stretch out and a buddy in the Japanese flight attendant who saw my new Nintendo DS and thought I was the coolest guy on the plane. (Thanks, Whitney and Corey! It’s awesome!) I’m glad that flight was so nice, because if I’d been stuck on a crappy plane for 13 hours I might have gone mad.

Arriving at the airport was a bit overwhelming, but I got through customs fine and exchanged money and then oh god, bus tickets and taxi cabs, and what the hell am I supposed to do?! Thankfully, when I got to the bus stop, I ran into other people who were working for Heart School as well, and I was able to relax as I was around other people who spoke English and who were heading where I was heading. I even met one guy who was wearing a Bluth Company shirt, which basically made him the coolest person ever in my book.

One long and boring bus ride later, we grabbed cabs and headed to the youth hostel in Mito, the capital of Ibaraki prefecture, and the home city of Heart School’s operations. There, I met up with Eri, the lady with whom I’d been in contact via email and phone, and several other ALTs. Some were Canadians recruited by some fellow named Ian, and many were members of the Something Awful forums recruited by Kent, who was in charge of our orientation program. Needless to say, lots of nerds, but cool folks nonetheless. (I’m surprisingly one of the few guys who didn’t bring their Wii or Xbox 360 to Japan. Seriously, what the hell? I had trouble with a laptop.)

The next day was the first day of our training, but thirty minutes in I was grabbed by my coordinator (basically my supervisor) and was told that I’d have to meet the board of education for my city. I was expecting to meet them today or Friday, but apparently they asked for Tuesday, so I missed half of the training. (If I turn out to be a terrible ALT, I’ll blame it on this.) We drove for two hours, and arrived in my city, Kitakawabe – a pretty small one, bordered on several sides by rivers. Apparently they are famous for their rice? Yeah, exciting, I know. I met the Board of Education directors (who all talked to my coordinator for about an hour in straight Japanese, meaning that I had to look interested when I couldn’t understand a word of what was going on), then was taken around to the three different schools where I will be teaching. There is one junior high school in the center of the city and two elementary schools on either side. I found out later I’d be living on the edge of the town, so I’m very close to one elementary school, very far from another, and a so-so distance from the junior high, where I’d be spending most of my time. I’ll be biking everywhere, so that’ll be a lot of fun.

I came back and hung out with some of the ALTs, unwinding from a surprisingly stressful day. They are some cool folks, and we’ve all talked about meeting up on weekends – I could take the train to Tokyo or Saitoma City and meet up with folks there. I’ve already friended several of these folks on Facebook. Unfortunately, after developing some great friendships with people from Britain, Canadia, and all over the United States, we are now being sent off to different cities in the Tokyo and Saitoma area. Also, I’m the only ALT in Kitakawabe, so I’ll be the only person within miles who is a native English speaker. I bet I’ll be learning Japanese pretty quickly, eh?

So now, I’m still hanging out at the youth hostel where we all gathered. Our training’s done, and slowly but surely we’re leaving Mito. I’ll be one of the last to leave, as I move into my apartment in Kitakawabe on Saturday. It’ll take about two days to set up internet there, so maybe my next entry will be all about my first day at school and how colossally I screwed up. ;)